Terry. John Terry. The best teammate you can have. I'm so certain Wayne Bridge would agree.

Anyways - I'm rather thinking that Ferdinand was meant when it came to "losing a good player". He's really a loss, no doubt.

And what speaks against Germany love? We have no Messi, we have no Rooney, we have no player who can hold up the ball 10 times in a row, but in the end, we're there. Somehow. Again. Doesn't this give a good feeling about life? Work hard together, and you don't need half the talent of others to win anything.

Yaaaaaay! Carragher IS out of international retirement! Funny thing, though... he's still not given the nod over Ledley King - John Terry. He retired because of getting virtually no caps because of Ferdinand and Terry, bwaha.

Messi was good though. 96 ball contacts. Had some bad luck. He' playing a different role for Argentinia than for Barca, which I really don't get at all. Put Messi on the wing, not straight behind the forwards. But that's Maradona...

If anyone makes really stupid decisions, it's Raymond Domenech. The MOTD commentators were hilarious. They couldn't believe that it took Domenech three substitutes to finally realise that Govou needed to come off.

And that Benzema isn't in the team. Crazy. Henry is past it. That's why he's heading off to MLS

I don't know if he's really a bad coach. It's just a decision I don't really get. He probably has his reasons.

There's a lot of rumours that Maradona is just a doll in front, while a whole lot of other people really control tactics and players.

In any case, he either wants Messi to be like him and puts him on his old position, or he wants to make sure that everyone knows Messi never will be a real 10. In any case, it's strange. Why no 4-3-3? With Higuain, Messi, Milito as forwards...:drools:

If anyone makes really stupid decisions, it's Raymond Domenech. The MOTD commentators were hilarious. They couldn't believe that it took Domenech three substitutes to finally realise that Govou needed to come off.

And that Benzema isn't in the team. Crazy. Henry is past it. That's why he's heading off to MLS

Benzema didn't have a strong season though for Madrid either. And Henry is a national symbol, plus, you know...hand, and stuff.

But it's a miracle to me as well how you can be so bad with such players. Ribery on his own is close to a guy like Messi, Robben or Sneijder, and then you've got Anelka, Sagna, Evra, Gourcuff...weird.

I agree that Benzema didn't shine (there's plenty of rumours that he's going to the Premiership), but he had his tactics all wrong. Ribery is a gem of a player, yet he had him playing too deep and too central. Uruguay had no width. Why not use that to their advantage? And Malouda had his greatest season with Chelsea, yet he falls out with him in training and refuses to play him on the other wing from Ribery?

But Anelka and Ribery obviously demanded that Malouda wouldn't play, because he's not working much for defense. That's at least what I read in the news here.

Ribery had a very difficult season for Bayern Munich though. He's not the player he was in 2008 or 2009 anymore. But you're right, put him on the wing.

But that's the thing at this world cup. Nearly every team plays with 4 defense, 2 defense midfielders, 3 rather offense midfielders and just one forward. There's no real 4-3-3 anymore, or at least 4-4-2.

4 games so far. 2 goals in first match, no goal in second, 2 goals in third match, 1 in fourth...*shrugs* Defense has a lot of focus really.

The thing is, many teams will be playing cautiously. Not many have had a chance to play in a climate and culture like South Africa. Give it to the second game of the groups, and you'll see more attacking football.

The Anelka and Ribery thing, I didn't hear about. I haven't had a chance to read anything about the reason he was dropped, other than he became pretty verbal with Domenech. And I would have rather played Malouda instead of Ribery. He's got a lot of personal problems at the moment, as we all know. But having Gignac on the wing instead of Ribery was daft.